Abaddon
by MaverikFlame
Summary: Loki is kidnapped and tortured by a madman obsessed with killing gods. Thor doesn't like the idea of someone hurting his little brother.
1. Chapter 1

Inspired by... a prompt. For some reason, won't let me post the link, so you're going to have to take my word for it that the prompt was an awesome one. Carry on.

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><p><strong>Intro<strong>

As with everything, he begins small. A stray cat or two plucked from the streets, unloved and unnoticed. Their blood is red like a man's, he discovers, and their cries sound like a child in pain. They are small but vicious, claws leaving jagged stripes down his face, his arms, but he overpowers them so easily – _too _easily – and the first thrill of pain and dominance turn cold and empty much too quickly.

Human children do not have such vicious claws, but they are larger, stronger, and take more guile to obtain. He enjoys the hunt, the chase, and these encounters teach him patience and finesse. Unlike the animals, children beg, he finds. He likes the begging most.

But it still is not enough. They break too easily, he decides, and where is the fun – the _challenge – _in that? The sobbing pleas of a grown man once proud and now broken are far more satisfying. They do not give in as easily as the children, but these toys still break too easily and too soon.

It is not enough, and he grows listless and angry. Murder sustains him, but he has never felt so very _bored_.

He does not know what he is. The mortals call him Abaddon, the Destroyer, and he accepts the name as an offering from lesser beings. He has long since forgotten his real name, anyhow.

He could not be human, he decides, because humans do not enjoy the coppery taste and smell of blood like he does. All creatures look and act the same in the throes of untold pain. A man is no better than a child is no better than an animal. But pain does not reduce _him_ to an animal. He bears it unflinchingly with a detached sort of fascination. And so he could not be human and must be something greater still.

But what else is there beyond Man? There are those so-called "Mutants" surely, but they bleed and whimper just the same.

And then he hears about Asgard and the gods of his ancestors. _Yes_, he thinks. Surely this must be the challenge he's longed for? Does a god feel pain, he wonders? Does a god bleed just like a man?

Maybe he's a god, he thinks. Maybe he's more than that if he can bring a god to his knees. Just the thought sends a shiver up his spine.

He chooses his target carefully, determined to find the greatest challenge among the Asgardians. He considers Thor for a moment but decides against it. He is strong, yes, and fierce and most likely has a high threshold for pain, but his mind is lacking in guile. Capturing him would hardly be a challenge.

And then he sees Loki, and he knows he will not rest until he has brought the God of Trickery to his knees.

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><p>"...they call him 'Abaddon' in the papers," Tony was saying, eyes trailing over the newspaper draped across his lap. He sounded bored, but Thor knew better; Tony Stark would not have brought it up unless he was fishing for a reaction.<p>

Thor had only just heard the name. His mortal friends filled him in on the details of the crafty mass-murderer, and it chilled him to think of what atrocities these humans were capable of. Killing in battle was acceptable, even honorable, but killing for the sake of killing was not something that Thor would ever understand.

And, by Odin, the _manner_ in which this monster killed was enough to chill even the god of thunder.

He tortured his victims, Hawkeye had explained, until they were no longer recognizable as human. Each victim was treated more savagely than the last, and it was this rapid escalation that worried Thor and his fellow Avengers. Normally this sort of thing was left to the police to deal with, but who knew what the madman would do next to up the ante? He might start trying to wipe out whole families, whole _cities_.

"Says here the police almost got the bastard," Tony was saying. "They shot him full in the chest, but he did not so much as flinch."

That meant he was not human, Thor realized.

That meant he had just officially become their problem.

Thor reached for his hammer.

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><p><em>AN:_ Urrrgh, I felt like I needed a bath after writing Abaddon's POV.


	2. Chapter 2

**Immortal Mischief**

Loki watched and waited, smiling genially and oh so harmlessly at the nameless faces that passed. He sipped at a glass of champagne, which, he decided, suited him much better than the heavy ale his father and brother preferred. Then again, something heavier might have distracted him from thinking of his "family" altogether.

It hardly mattered, he decided, and so he turned back towards his current object of interest, this Dr. Lazarus who claimed to have unlocked the secrets of immortality and eternal youth. The thought was almost enough to make Loki choke from laughing around his champagne. The mortal had just unveiled the fruits of his labor, a tube the size of a walk-in closet into which a mortal would step and – presto! – insta-youth!

Naturally, Loki was curious, but he was less than thrilled with the idea of a few uppity mortals deciding they were his equals. So he decided to examine the machine and thought it would be far more entertaining if said mortal accidentally turned himself into a small woodland creature instead.

Or something. Dear Odin, Loki really was bored, wasn't he?

The trickster slipped through the lines of guards and crept into the darkness of the back rooms. He could hardly sabotage Dr. Lazarus' tube with so many eyes upon it, so first he needed to find a way to distract the mortals and...

The hair on the back of Loki's neck prickled, and he stilled in the shadows of the laboratory. He plastered his most disarming smile across his face and turned to regard the man he could feel staring at him. If it was a guard, perhaps he could act drunk, and...

Well now.

The man was tall and blonde and looked altogether far too much like Thor. It wasn't Thor, though, Loki noticed right away. It was like someone had used an airbrush to blur the edges and smooth away all the little imperfections that made Thor so wonderfully and maddeningly _Thor_. That did not stop Loki from smirking at the smiling not-Thor, though. He was far from perfect himself, after all, and this not-Thor was giving his trickster's mind far too many ideas.

He was not a guard then, Loki surmised. The trickster cocked his head to the side and watched as the not-Thor approached on silent feet, like a panther stalking its prey. Odd.

"Can I help you, good sir?" Loki asked, squaring his shoulders and lifting his chin like he was supposed to be there and hadn't been skulking through the shadows moments before.

It was when the not-Thor approached that Loki recognized the tingle of magic. It danced like electricity over his skin and raised the fine hairs on his arms. It was that face, he realized, that too-familiar, too-perfect face. Loki used his own magic to peak under the illusion and found that there was no face beneath it, just a flat, ghostly white slab of flesh that served as a blank palette for the stranger's illusion. But it was more than an illusion, Loki realized. Its magic was centered on him and dependent upon what he _wanted_ to see. He was familiar with that brand of sorcery, having used it often enough himself, but he had never seen it used quite like this, which was really quite fascinating when he paused to think about it.

Loki decided not to think about why his subconscious had wanted to see _Thor_ of all people.

But wait... if the sorcery was centered on and dependent on _him, _that meant that this creature had been focused on him for a while. The not-Thor smelled of sweat and blood, and he was still smiling. Most definitely odd, Loki decided.

This was getting dangerous, he realized. Maybe that was why he couldn't stop himself. He had been so bored until now, after all.

"Did my brother send you?" Loki asked. "Did the 'Avengers' recruit yet another mortal freak? Or are you selling girl-scout cookies now? If so, you can put me down for some thin mints."

As he spoke, Loki started to reach for his magic.

The not-Thor smiled, then grabbed Loki by the arms and smashed his illusory but all too-realistic-feeling lips into the god's.

Loki froze. He had been ready for a witty rejoinder or even some form of violence, but not this. He was fast losing control of the situation, he realized, but he was far too curious to see where this would lead to push the stranger away. He kept his eyes open and stared at the not-Thor even as his lips responded and his tongue slithered, snake-like, against the stranger's. His taste was familiar with a tang of something metallic. When he recognized the taste of blood, Loki's breath hitched, and he pulled away.

But the not-Thor's hand curled around his neck in a grip of steel, and suddenly Loki could not breathe. He needed breath to form words and words to form magic, but with that hand on his windpipe, he could do nothing but gag and claw at the stranger's crushing fingers. Loki was stronger than any mortal, but this stranger was... decidedly not human.

Black spots skirted Loki's vision. When he felt the prick of a needle against his neck, Loki wondered if he should have run when he had had the chance.

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><p><em>AN:_ ...totally not how I planned on that scene going down, but, well, Loki has a mind of his own and decided to be a bit of a manslut to toy with me. -shakes fist at wily trickster-


	3. Chapter 3

**Rude Awakening**

Loki awakened sluggishly, opening his eyes to a blur of shapes that took some time to wrangle into coherence. Eventually he was aware of the warmth of a hand against his face, the palm molded to his jaw and the thumb tracing the line of his cheekbone, and then he realized that the bright blur in front of him was actually a man.

"Its skin is soft like a human's," the blur said, "but cold."

Loki blinked and wrestled his way through the fog in his brain. Something had happened... something about Dr. Lazarus and his absurd claims and then... what?

His vision finally cleared, and he realized that the man staring down at him with a hand on his cheek did not have a face. Loki remembered, drew in a sharp breath and jerked away. It took a few long moments of grunting and flailing before he realized that his wrists and ankles were bound with bands of metal and that he could barely move. He huffed and pulled harder, intending to break them with his Jotun strength, but they would not give. Next he tried his magic, but the spells were locked away in the part of his mind still mired in fog. He grunted and thunked his head back against the slab of metal on which he was displayed like a piece of meat.

Loki swallowed and glared at the faceless man but willed himself not to panic just yet. He just needed to review his options. Strength and sorcery were out, but they were not his only weapons.

The faceless man continued to stare at him – well, Loki _assumed_ he was staring, though the creature had no eyes to speak of or a mouth to speak of, for that matter; just _how_ exactly had he spoken before? – and the hand stroking his cheek in a sick parody of compassion moved up to smooth back his hair, petting him like he was some sort of skittish animal.

"What do you want?" Loki asked, schooling his expression into one of immense boredom. "Hm? Is it money? Information? Godhood? A harem of nymphs?"

Loki wasn't sure where to look on an eyeless face.

"Does it bleed like a human?" the faceless man asked. Loki could not see where the sound issued from. It had no mouth, and his throat did not move when he spoke. Loki wracked his brain, sifting through catalogues of strange and foreign creatures, but he drew a blank – so to speak – on the faceless creature in front of him. Was it a human then, somehow deformed? Or a mutant, like Xavier's precious X-men? At least he wasn't wearing their signature tights.

"I'm not an 'it'," Loki replied almost absently as the gears in his brain continued to churn. "What" his captor was did not really matter, he grudgingly decided. He could puzzle out that enigma once he was back in his lair, concocting his next dastardly plan. "I'm a 'he'. Though I could be a 'she', if that's something you desire." Loki molded his features into a seductive leer even as he tried not to vomit at the idea. It was distasteful, surely, but if he could convince his captor to at least free his ankles...

"It maintains its composure when frightened longer than a human."

Loki gritted his teeth. "Who says I'm frightened?" he sneered. His captor placed a too-warm hand flat against the left side of Loki's chest.

"Its heart thuds like a rabbit's."

Loki frowned, for once truly at a loss. He thanked the Norns that Thor was not there to see it, at least.

The faceless creature started to poke and prod at Loki like a potential buyer examining a horse for sale, every once in a while pausing to scribble something into a blood-stained notepad. That, more than anything, told Loki this would not end well. So he was a research subject. Just how far would this examination go?

"While you're at it, Doc," Loki said when the silence started to chafe, "there's this mole on my backside I've been wanting to have checked out, if you could – _mmmph!_"

His captor stuck a thumb into Loki's mouth and wrenched open his jaw, staring without eyes into his mouth. Loki rolled his eyes and considered biting off the offending appendage, only to decide against it. This was uncomfortable and humiliating, but he was at the mercy of a deranged mortal. Perhaps it was best not to anger him more than necessary.

"It seems human," said the faceless creature. Did it just sound disappointed?

Loki wondered if that was the hint he had needed.

"Alas, yes, that's me," he said once his captor had released his jaw, "disappointingly and regrettably human. I'm afraid that I am no more interesting than your average Joe." That was how the mortals said it, wasn't it? "But if you were to be so kind as to release me, I could tell about quite a few _far_ more interesting–!"

"It is not human."

Loki sighed, deflating, and wondered where this would go next.

"What do you want with me?" he asked, hoping the wide-eyed, pitiful face he was making was enough to make his captor at least stop referring to him as "it".

Loki's captor turned and fiddled with something on a table just out of Loki's peripheral vision. He returned with a thin, wicked-looking knife with a hook at the end.

"It would not understand."

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><p>Bonus points to those of you who know where I borrowed Dr. Lazarus from. -whistles innocently-<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Hel on Earth**

Somewhere in the back of his mind, past the drug and pain-induced fog, Loki was grudgingly impressed with his captor's ingenuity. He had seen torture among humans centuries ago and thought he had long stopped being impressed by humanity's capacity for cruelty.

The difference was all in the technology, he supposed. In medieval Midgard, once a finger was broken off, that was it; it could not be broken off again. Now, however, this faceless monster was privy to some sort of technology – magic? – that these mortals really should not yet be privy to,

and a broken appendage could knit itself back together, ready to be exploited and destroyed anew. Loki had to admit that it was an ingenious and effective way to torture someone. If he had had any information to give, he'd had given it halfway through the second time he was being skinned alive and having his organs rearranged in front of him.

Loki kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, tracing water stains and clumps of mold in his mind's eye to distract himself from the pain. The air felt raw against his chest as his skin slowly knit itself back together. In his place, a mortal would have been dead hours ago, he knew, super-healing or no. He was sticky with blood and sweat, and his face was crusted with tears, but in that moment he felt disconnected from his broken body. He knew he was trembling and breathing in harsh sobs, but he noted these things in a detached sort of way, as though he were merely looking on and not participating in this scene.

His captor was so methodical and detached, and that frightened Loki more than any of those wicked-looking instruments did as they pressed and twisted and cut through his skin. Well. Maybe _frightened_ wasn't the word he would use, but by the time the faceless man put away his bloodied instruments, Loki would have given up a limb just to see or hear the barest flicker of emotion from his captor. Loki could exploit emotions, but it was difficult to outwit a machine.

He could not let this break him. Loki closed his eyes and scolding himself for letting a mere mortal reduce him to tears like this. How could he have ever thought he was Odin's son?

Loki bit back a whimper when his faceless captor returned for round two, but then he gritted his teeth and conjured up an image of Odin frowning disapprovingly down at him. Loki scraped together the last bits of his bravado and managed a bored-looking eye-roll as this creature approached.

"You're back," he said. He frowned briefly at the weak rasp his voice had been reduced to. "Good. My nose is _so_ itchy. Can you give me a hand?"

The faceless man paused and seemed to regard Loki for a long moment. The Jotun felt his heartbeat pound in his ears.

"It is resilient," he noted. "But it bleeds and flinches like a man." He sounded disappointed again. Loki wished he understood what game they were playing. "And it will beg like a man."

The worst part of it all, worse still than all the pain and the blood, was that his captor was right about that last bit. Loki didn't know he was screaming until his own voice echoed back to his ears.

The next time Loki came to, he could barely even remember his name from the pain that burned through all his nerve-endings. This time his captor had reached into his mind – and that violation was so much worse than anything he had done to Loki's body – and sent his synapses abuzz with white-hot pain. The faceless man could not maintain the connection for long, but Loki's heart had felt like it was ready to burst through his chest. Now Loki had added vomit to the stickiness of blood and sweat crusting on his chest.

Somewhere through the fog, Loki knew he could not take much more of this.

The pain had turned him back into a scared, helpless child, and so his pain-addled mind reached for the comforts he remembered from his childhood. At that moment, he just wanted to be home in Asgard, curled up on his soft, familiar, _comforting_ bed. He closed his eyes and envisioned it, imagining his mother's soothing hand carding through his hair and humming a song as old as time itself. His brother sat next to him, talking too loudly about how he would kill anyone who ever touched him again, making the bed shake with all his vehement gesturing, and Loki would act annoyed but be secretly grateful. Envisioning the wall of muscle that was Thor standing between him and the rest of his world was a balm for his fractured nerves. Much as he hated standing in his brother's shadow, he had always felt safe there.

Loki opened his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. The bite of the manacles against his wrists and the slab of cold metal under his cheek dispelled the illusion as quickly as it had come, and the world felt even more cold and empty and lonely now in comparison. Wet tears curved down his cheeks and into his hairline. That world and those comforts were lost to him forever.

Loki supposed he deserved this and more. He could see his father standing over him and telling him as much before turning and walking away.

But his brother – his stupid, thick-skulled brother – would not leave him there to die, he knew.

"Thor," Loki murmured into the darkness.

He did not want to die alone.

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><p><em>AN:_ Angsty Loki is the peanut butter to my jelly. I feel bad for putting him through so much pain, though. ;_;

Up next: Thor to the rescue! :D


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: _cookies to those of you who got the Doctor Who reference. For those of you disappointed with the lack of Ten/Loki interaction, let's just say that I'll be making up for it in another fic. ;)

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><p><strong>Rescue Me<strong>

"It is not a god!" The faceless creature grabbed Loki by the jaw and shook, and the trickster pried open one eye still gummy with half-dried tears. Finally some emotion, Loki acknowledged dimly, before letting his eye fall shut again. "That is why it is weaker than expected!"

So weak compared to Thor. Was that why Father was shaking him by the jaw?

No... that was not right, was it?

"So much time wasted!" There was a clatter of metal on metal, and Loki assumed he had thrown his cruel instruments back on their tray. The sounds of his captor's tantrum were fuzzy and blurred in his ears, little more than background static. "And on a Jotun runt!"

"That's not my fault, Father." Loki's words barely slurred past his lips. They went unheard by his captor. "I tried... I tried so hard..."

Thor would always stand up for him. Where was he? Had he finally given up on his little brother?

The burn of a white-hot poker against the soles of his feet reminded Loki that he was supposed to be screaming.

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><p>Thor was not sure how the humans had tracked this so-called Abaddon to an empty warehouse outside the city, but he decided that hardly mattered. It was his job to swing Mjolnir and lay waste to their foe. He would leave the thinking to his more cerebral-inclined friends, Hawkeye and Iron Man, who had decided to join him.<p>

Next to him, Clint nocked his bow and muttered something about cliché villainous hideouts. Tony chuckled inside his helmet, but Thor was distracted by... something.

"Thor?" Tony prompted.

Thor blinked, only then realizing that he had stumbled to a halt. "Loki's here," he said, fighting to keep his tone neutral. Iron Man and Hawkeye exchanged glances.

"Fantastic," Clint muttered as Thor pursed his lips and pushed past both of them towards the warehouse. "We get two psychos for the price of one."

Thor shot a glare at his friend, but his heart was not in it. If Loki was here, that meant he was either working with Abaddon or...

Thor's heart skipped at that second possibility.

Tony and Clint had to sprint to keep up with their companion a moment later.

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><p>Thor's cry of rage hardly came as a surprise to Loki, though his voice sounded strangely distant. He was used to hearing it when he was in pain, since Thor was always so very insistent on protecting his little brother with all the rage of a tempest.<p>

Next came the wet sound of hammer on flesh, then the terrified screams and gurgling breaths of a dying man, all of it right on schedule. Thor's methods had always been predictable, but for some reason it all felt so anticlimactic.

For his part, Loki was having a hard time feeling his extremities or remembering why his skin felt like it was on fire.

"Loki."

Thor's callused fingers felt refreshingly cool against Loki's cheek. Loki leaned into the touch and the safety it implied, not awake enough to register the vulnerability inherent in the action.

"Shit," said another, distantly familiar voice. "That's a lot of blood."

"Thor," Loki slurred with a weak smile. "Father is angry again."

This was where Thor was supposed to scold his little brother and tell him he needed to learn how to behave himself. Then he would laugh uproariously and tell Loki that Odin was not really angry and that everything was all right.

Loki needed Thor to tell him everything was all right.

"Stay with me, brother," Thor said instead. His hands were unusually gentle as he cradled Loki to his chest. Loki knew he should snap at Thor for treating him like a porcelain doll, but he was just so, _so_ tired and he forgot the words before they even made it to his lips.

"Stay with me."


	6. Chapter 6

**In the Land of the Living**

Loki awakened confused and in pain. The surface beneath him was soft like a cloud, and he lay there floating, wrapped in a cocoon of warmth. Distantly, he wondered when his bed had gotten so soft, but he drifted off again before he could grasp what that meant.

The next time he woke, it was to a sound like a tree being sawed in half and to dizzying pain in his hand. Loki opened the one eye that wasn't mashed against a feather-soft pillow and blinked until the blur of colors coalesced into their proper shapes. The lines of objects still seemed blurred and the colors over-bright, but Loki saw enough to realize that he had no idea where he was.

His first clue came from the source of that grating sound, which turned out to be a familiar –currently snoring – tuft of blonde hair, pressed into the mattress, near his hip. Loki did not even need to look to know that the owner of the aforementioned hair was currently crushing his already shattered fingers in a grip of steel. Loki sighed and tried to wriggle his hand free, but Thor's fingers tightened instinctively. Loki winced and stilled, sighing in resignation.

Unable to move, Loki instead turned his mind towards figuring out where he was. Thor was here, and the room carried the distinctive stench of Midgard, so that narrowed the options considerably. Considering the lavish decorations, Loki surmised that he was in the Stark mansion. He had been here often enough, anyway, though never in this room and never as a... "guest".

Loki grimaced and pressed his face fully into the pillow. That meant that it hadn't all been a warped dream and that – oh, sweet Asgard – his brother and his colorful band of avenging pansies had seen the state Loki was in. That cut deeper than that... _creature_ ever had. And thanks to his brother's uncannily strong fingers, Loki couldn't even slink away and go lick his wounds in private.

It made Loki want to hit something. Maybe that was why he decided to kick Thor awake.

The god of thunder grunted, snuffled unattractively and blinked owlishly up at his brother.

"You're crushing my hand, you idiot," Loki grumbled into the pillow.

Thor blinked uncomprehendingly at his brother for a long moment before looking down at the offending hand and jerking it away with a stammering apology.

"Just shut up, please," Loki mumbled, turning his back to Thor and closing his eyes. Maybe his brother would get the hint and leave him to sulk in silence.

"Loki..."

Thor never was very good at picking up on subtext. Instead of going away, he pressed a hand to Loki's shoulder, careful now to keep his touch achingly gentle. Loki felt the mattress dip behind him and knew that Thor was sitting next to him on the bed.

"What you went through," Thor began, but Loki growled and threw off his brother's hand.

"What about the words 'shut up' do you not understand, brother?"

Thor was silent for a long moment, but Loki knew better than to hope that his brother had listened to his request.

"It's been a while since you called me 'brother'," he said in a subdued voice.

Loki winced. "A slip of the tongue and nothing more, I assure you," Loki said coldly. "Please leave."

Another pause, and then, "No."

Loki tried to shoot a glare over his shoulder, but it hurt too much to bend that way. "Fine," he replied, definitely _not_ sounding the least bit petulant, thank-you-very-much. "Then I will."

Loki put his splinted fingers under him and started to push himself up. He clenched his jaw against the firecracker-bright pain that ran up his spine and through his extremities. Thor's hand was on his shoulder again the next moment, still gentle but firm enough to hold him down. Loki's cheeks burned with shame at the clear display of the difference in their strengths.

It reminded Loki that, for all his wit and cunning, he was still a weak little boy compared to his brother. Thor might as well have put the shackles back on his wrists.

He had fought so hard to be anything but helpless, but the actions of one crazy mortal had shaken him to the core.

"I hate you," Loki spat with as much venom as he could muster. The burning pressure against the back of his eyes told Loki he was near tears, and that just made his shame that much more pronounced. He breathed sharply through the constricting weight around his chest.

"Liar."

Thor slid a hand under his brother's side and lifted him as though he were paper-thin, holding Loki to his chest and carding a hand through his dark hair.

"Stop treating me like I'm made of glass," Loki choked, holding himself stiff and rigid just out of spite.

"Stop acting like a fool," Thor rejoined softly.

Loki raised his eyes to Thor's, and they stared at each other defiantly for a long while. Eventually, Loki decided he was too tired for this, so he lowered his gaze and, sighing resignedly, pressed his face to Thor's shoulder like he had with his pillow earlier. He was just putting on a show to put Thor at ease, Loki told himself. Nothing more.

He had always been a good liar. Even to himself.

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><p>"You <em>do<em> remember when we first formed the Avengers, right?" Tony asked.

It was a rhetorical question, but Thor still sighed and said, "Yes."

"It was to stop your trigger-happy little brother from _destroying half the planet_!"

Thor folded his arms across his chest and stared Tony down. Tony Stark did not so much as blink. "Just saying," the human said, raising his hands palm-out in a gesture of surrender.

"I'm all he has," Thor sighed. "And he's still my brother, no matter how misguided. What would you have me do?"

Tony sighed and stared out the window, frowning. "That's up to you," he said. "God knows I won't stop you if you want to play nursemaid to Loki. Just make sure you lock the door from the outside whenever you leave that room. I don't want him slinking around the place."

Thor shook his head and turned to head back towards his brother's temporary living quarters. Behind him, Tony was still talking.

"Is this what sibling rivalry is like among gods? Because if so, Earth is not going to last much longer if you keep procreating."


	7. Chapter 7

**The Darkness of My Mind**

Loki stared into the darkness, counting the minutes until dawn. In the stillness, he could hear every drip of water, every creak of a distant floorboard, and it was slowly driving him mad. He had long since stopped trying to sleep; each time he closed his eyes, even just to blink, he saw Abaddon's faceless visage, staring at him without eyes.

But he was exhausted, and eventually his eyes drifted close without his consent. Loki found himself shackled to a table again, with Abaddon coming at him with that hooked knife angled at his face. Loki wriggled against his bonds, but then it wasn't shackles holding him down but Thor's arms clasped in an iron grip about his chest, pinning Loki's arms to his sides. Loki begged, pleaded, and raged at his brother to release him, but Thor remained still as stone, holding him in place as that knife filled his vision, and -!

Loki jerked awake just before having his eye ripped out.

He sat up and gulped in air, the sheets clinging to his sweat-slicked skin. His heart pounded in his ears. He needed air.

Loki shuffled to the edge of the bed and planted his feet on the floor, growling through the pain that rippled through recently dissected muscles. Leaning heavily on the wall, he limped his way towards the door, guided through the darkness by the strip of light that outlined the bottom of the door-frame. As he fumbled for the doorknob, he could almost feel the heavy stare of an eyeless face on his back.

Loki's breathing quickened again. Thor _had_ killed Abaddon, hadn't he? Or had that been one of his fevered delusions?

He needed air.

He jostled the doorknob, but it was locked and would not give. Loki's heartbeat thudded in his ears. He wrenched harder and fumbled for his magic, but the words skittered away in the wake of his burgeoning panic.

"Calm down, you fool," Loki hissed to himself, letting his forehead thunk against the wood of the door. He tried to steady his breathing, but that eyeless face just...

Loki growled in frustration and kicked at the door, instantly regretting it when pain scattered like shrapnel through his leg. His knees buckled, and he slumped to the floor in a broken heap.

So _weak_.

Loki gritted his teeth and punched the floor in frustration, seeing stars as the broken bones in his hand ground together, but the pain – _this _pain_ – _was under his control and sharpened his frazzled senses. He punched the ground again.

And again.

He lost track of time until he felt a hand on his wrist and an arm wrapped about his chest. Loki snarled and kicked, but those hands were far stronger than he.

"Loki!"

Thor's voice penetrated the pain-filled fog of his brain, and Loki stilled and blinked, coming back to himself.

The door was open, pouring light into the room, and Loki could see for himself that there were no faceless demons hidden in the shadows. Loki looked down at his hand and saw that it was shaking hard and covered in blood, his index and middle fingers bent at an unnatural angle.

"Shit," he breathed.

Thor eased his grip and moved so that he was kneeling next to his brother, staring intently into his face. Loki glared back at him.

"Say one word, and I will kill you," he said.

Thor sighed and rose to his feet. "Stay there," he said, softly but with the weight of command. Thor's shadow blocked the light in the doorway for a moment before Loki heard his heavy footsteps echo down the corridor.

Loki doubted he could have moved if he wanted to. He stared down at his wreck of a hand and cradled it in his lap, morbidly fascinated but more than a little worried.

Thor returned moments later with a wet washcloth and some bandages. Without a word, he knelt in front of his brother and began washing the blood from his hand. Loki supposed he could do that himself, but he lacked the energy to be difficult. When Thor paused to give him a questioning look, Loki realized that his brother planned to reset the bones. His eyes widened.

"Thor," he said. "Wait!"

"On the count of three," Thor said. Loki tensed and closed his eyes. "One."

Loki's vision turned white, and he blurted out a few choice expletives as his fingers ground back into place.

"_Did you forget how to count?_" Loki shrieked, his voice an octave higher than usual.

Thor smirked as he wound the bandages around Loki's torn knuckles. Loki watched him guardedly, expecting the lecture or probing questions to come spilling out of Thor any moment. Instead, Thor remained suspiciously silent, though he gave Loki a lingering look after he released his hand.

Thor rose to his feet, and Loki stared after him. "What?" Thor asked, grinning.

"That's it?" Loki blurted.

"What do you mean?" Thor looked genuinely puzzled.

"No lecture? No 'stop acting like an idiot, Loki'?"

Thor arched an amused eyebrow. "I'm too tired for the lecture," he replied. "But yes, you really should stop acting like an idiot."

Loki frowned down at the floor.

"Come," Thor said. He bent down and scooped Loki off the floor, carrying him bridal style towards the bed.

"Ack!" Loki flailed and swatted at his brother's arms. "I don't need you to carry me like some sort of swooning wench!"

"Then stop acting like one."

Loki huffed and folded his arms across his chest, scowling into space. Thor dumped his brother unceremoniously into the middle of the bed and then sat at its edge, bending to unlace his boots.

"Scoot over," Thor said over his shoulder.

"Pardon?" Loki asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"I'm tired," Thor sighed, "but I can't leave you alone for five minutes without you damaging something, so scoot over. The bed's big enough for five, so I think we can share."

"Do you often have five people in your bed?" Loki asked.

"My bed's not this big."

Loki smirked, silently approving of the sarcastic response. Still, he was not sure how he felt about all this. Distantly, he felt relieved by the idea. The thought of Thor being nearby to fend off his demons was comforting, maybe even enough to keep his nightmares at bay, but that level of clinginess sickened him. That did not mean he wanted Thor to leave, however. Not that he really wanted to admit that to himself.

"Just don't hog the covers," Loki said at length, burrowing into the sheets and turning so his back was to Thor.

"Deal."

The bed dipped behind him as Thor stretched out along the far end of the bed, and Loki half feared that the bed would capsize under his weight. Loki kicked him when he started to snore.

Eventually Loki's eyes drifted close and slipped back into sleep. He still saw Abaddon behind his eyelids, but Thor's hand on his shoulder shook him awake each time he started to sink into another nightmare. Sometime in the middle of the night, Thor rolled over in his sleep and ended up half crushing Loki under his snoring dead weight. Loki considered kicking him again only to think better of it, huffing and shaking his head but ultimately getting comfortable and falling back asleep.

He had no more nightmares for the rest of the night.


	8. Chapter 8

**Impossible**

Loki thumbed through this "Abaddon's" journal, holding it pinched between the tips of his fingers to keep from touching the spatters of blood that made the pages stick together. Tony had intended to hand it over to the police as evidence to help identify the victims, but, unbeknownst to him and the other Avengers, Loki had switched it with a duplicate at the last second.

It had been foolish, he supposed. Loki was still too weak to use magic, and that simple bit of duplication had been enough to leave him exhausted, a headache pounding between his ears. But it was not enough for Loki to know everything that had happened; he needed to know _why_.

The journal had been of little use so far. It was a strange amalgamation of the ramblings of a madman and the precise observations of a scientist. The pages about Loki spoke of him like he was the nothing he thought he was.

Loki's hands shook with exhaustion, but he still summoned up enough rage to fling the notebook across the room, watching as it slammed into the wall and its pages broke free and scattered like a flock of pigeons.

There _had_ to be a reason why Abaddon had done those things to him. Had he angered the madman in the past?

Dammit, he needed to _know_ or he would be stuck repeating these questions, unable to move past this.

Loki wiped a hand over his face. Where did he go from here? This Abaddon creature had turned him inside out, physically and mentally, and Loki was not sure who he was anymore. He owed Thor his life, but knowing that only made him want to begin projectile vomiting.

Loki wished Thor had left Abaddon alive. He would have liked to have torn him apart, one inch at a time.

A short time later, Thor appeared in the doorway and paused to consider the mess of papers scattered across the floor.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Thinking," Loki murmured distractedly. "Some of us like to do that on occasion."

Thor rolled his eyes as he bent to collect the mess of paper. After a moment, he paused and turned a sharp look on Loki. "Why do you have this?" he asked, brandishing the tattered journal, his syllables clipped in annoyance.

Loki shrugged, staring into space and hoping his brother would go away if ignored for long enough.

Thor mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "Odin, give me strength," as he scooped up the last of the papers and deposited them on the bed. Loki's eyes were drawn to the bloodstained pages, and he stared at them for a long moment as Thor stood by the bed, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot.

"If you have something to say, then say it," Loki muttered, his gaze finally flickering up to meet Thor's.

"Even if my words would only be met with derision?"

"You'll be met with derision whether you speak or not," Loki growled. He wished his brother would stop tip-toeing around him. It only made him feel like more of an invalid than he already was.

As least his body was well on its way to being healed, with the exception of his newly mangled hand. With luck, he would be free of this place within the next twenty-four hours.

"I wish you would talk to me," Thor said, again with that soft, pitying look that made Loki nauseous.

Loki clenched his less injured hand into a fist. "What verb would you apply to this, then?" he asked, gesturing vaguely between the two of them. Where was Thor's infamous rage, now?

"I meant about... what happened," Thor continued, still staunchly refusing to be baited, apparently.

"You want details?" Loki sneered, crossing his arms. He jerked his chin in the direction of Abaddon's journal. "You should find all the details you want in there."

Except the ones that Loki had been looking for, apparently.

Thor pursed his lips and crossed his arms, mirroring Loki's defiant posture. "It's not about the details," he said. "It's about whether or not you're... all right."

Loki paused as though seriously considering his reply. "I am healing," he answered. "I should be well enough to move about freely by tomorrow, I should think."

An exasperated look crossed Thor's features. "Stop acting so dense," he snapped.

"I could say the same."

Anger flashed through Thor's eyes, and Loki smirked, pleased that he had finally goaded his brother. His glare softened the next moment, however, and Loki bit back a growl of frustration.

"You can't... you shouldn't have to go through this alone," Thor said softly. "No one should."

"That is not your decision to make," Loki murmured. He could not meet Thor's gaze.

Thor shook his head and glanced about the room, his gaze eventually alighting on the untouched tray of food by the bed.

"You really should eat something, Loki."

Loki shot a scathing look at his brother before turning away and glaring at the wall again. "I'm not hungry," he petulantly insisted.

The truth was he was famished, but the shattered bones in his fingers were still splinted and knitting themselves back together. Even something as simple as gripping a spoon had become excruciatingly painful. Both hands were stiff and weak from Abaddon's oh-so-wonderful ministrations, but Loki, being Loki, had damaged his main hand even more in the wake of his stupidity the previous night.

In short, eating was a no-go for the moment.

Next to him, Thor sighed. "I could help, if you -?"

"If you come anywhere near me, I will castrate you with that spoon."

The last thing Loki wanted was to be spoon-fed. He bristled at the thought, still glaring away from his brother.

He expected Thor to snap at him, to scold him, but instead his brother studied him for a long moment before saying, "We could make a game of it."

Loki turned to regard Thor at those words, a childhood memory tugging at the edge of his thoughts.

* * *

><p>"<em>Come on, Thor, you need to eat," Loki said.<em>

_Thor huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at the sheets. He had burned his hands rather severely in a rather disastrous game of Truth or Dare, and he couldn't even touch his food without hurting himself._

_Loki, of course, found this hilarious and insisted on spoon-feeding Thor, but the elder boy had refused after his brother had started giving him instructions in baby-talk. The situation was humiliating enough as it was._

_Thor glared at Loki, wishing his brother would get the hint and go away._

_Loki chewed on his lip thoughtfully before turning back to his brother with a crooked grin. "Let's play a game," he said._

_Thor eyed him narrowly. "Your last game is the reason I'm in this situation to begin with," he mumbled._

_Loki rolled his eyes and shook his head. "A different kind of game," he said. "The rules are this: you are not allowed to use your hands. You fold your arms behind your back while I sit behind you and slide my arms under your armpits. Without looking, I have to act as your arms while you eat."_

_Thor shrugged and decided to play along, curious. It was surprisingly difficult, he found, but the boys were soon bursting into gales of laughter at the absurdity of their game. He suspected Loki was being intentionally clumsy, smearing food all over his face one moment and holding it just out of reach the next._

"_Ack! Not the brussel sprouts, Loki! I _hate_ brussel sprouts!"_

* * *

><p>Loki chuckled before he could stop himself. "I can't believe you remember that," he murmured. Loki relaxed and let his arms fall back to his sides. He knew Thor was returning that long-ago favor; he was offering to help Loki eat without wounding his recently-fractured pride.<p>

"I've waited many-a-year to have my vengeance since that moment," Thor told him with mock severity.

Loki found himself smiling despite himself. He was far too hungry to argue further.

"You are impossible," he said.

"So are you."

* * *

><p><em>AN:_ Thanks for all the awesome comments, guys! One more chapter, then we're done here.

And, um. There's a good chance that a sequel may result from this. -shifty eyes- What do you guys think?


	9. Chapter 9

Okay, guys, last chapter! It... bothers my OCDness that I'm ending on the ninth installment, since it's not an interval of five or two. Well, then again, this is Norse mythology: there are supposed to be nine worlds, so yes. I've just justified it to myself. Carry on.

Also, I've just enabled anonymous reviews, since... I didn't realize they were disabled, ahahaha. ^_^;

* * *

><p><strong>So This is Goodbye<strong>

"You do not have to leave."

Loki paused at those words, lingering in the doorway. He flexed his injured hand, pleased that the muscles had finally slid back into place and that he could do all those annoying little things he had taken for granted, like being able to zip up his pants. He was well enough to dress and feed himself, to walk for some distance – if at a painfully slow pace – and, in his mind, to be on his own again, out from under Thor's shadow, his concern, and – most painful of all – his debt.

"And what?" Loki replied, turning to look at his brother. "Stay here? Renounce my 'evil ways', don some tights, and become one of your precious Avengers?"

"I saved your life," Thor snapped. "You could be more civil."

"I did not ask you to," Loki replied. "I do not need you to fight my battles for me!"

Thor scowled. "By blood or not, I'm still your brother, Loki."

"Well, in that case, I neither need nor want your concern, 'brother'," Loki snarled, folding his arms across his chest and lifting his chin at a haughty angle.

Loki watched as the irritation bled from Thor's face. Loki wanted to punch him if only to see the rage he deserved reflected in those storm-blue eyes again. "I could never claim to understand you," Thor said, speaking slowly as though weighing each word. "It has taken me all these years to realize that it's not my place to. You _do_ need me, whether your pride will let you admit it or not... in the same way that I need you."

Loki scoffed at first, then paused when Thor spoke those last words. Thor had always been his better, had always been larger than life. "You've never needed me," Loki said defensively.

Thor closed the distance between them and placed his hand over Loki's newly bandaged one. Loki looked askance at his brother then down at his hand, tensing to move away at the slightest provocation, but he allowed Thor to keep that small point of contact. "You were always so much like Father," Thor said. "So composed and wise. You always knew what to say and how to act. I was never good at those things, but with Mjolnir in my hand, I felt invincible." Thor paused to swallow. "You may have been my little brother, but in some ways you always seemed so much older than I. I merely wanted to make you proud the only way I could."

Loki could not match the open honesty in his brother's eyes, so he dropped his gaze with a heavy sigh. He was not lying, Loki knew. Thor had always been content with the truth where Loki never was. And now he was staring at the trickster with child-like hope in his eyes, as though looking for validation.

The mighty Thor had just revealed a chink in his armor, Loki realized. All he had to do was plunge the knife in, and, after all the damage that Abaddon had wreaked, he would finally regain the upper-hand.

Loki stared his brother in the eye and opened his mouth to give the coup de gras, to tell his brother that he was a fool and that Loki had always hated and resented him. In that moment, three words were all it would take to sever the tattered remains of the bond between them. Three words and Loki would be free from the burden of family.

The words died on his lips.

"I should go," was what he said instead, neither indulging nor destroying the hope in Thor's eyes. Just this once, he decided, he would not be cruel.

In Loki's mind, that made them even.

"Goodbye, my brother," Loki said, throwing one last bone.

Thor smiled a bittersweet smile at the epithet and nodded. "Goodbye," he said.

Loki swallowed the lump in his throat and briskly walked away, forcing himself to face forward and to not throw one last glance at his brother.

At the last moment, he decided to make a small detour before leaving the mansion.

* * *

><p>Brooding, Thor poked at his food, wondering where his brother was at that moment. He hadn't the slightest clue.<p>

He missed how things had once been, when they were children and he would share his every waking moment with his wily younger brother. Back then, Thor thought that the Frost Giants would be his greatest foes and that his brother would always be at his side.

Never for a moment had he ever considered the possibility of Loki not being beside him, let alone fighting _against_ him. But just now, for the briefest moment, everything had been back to what it was supposed to be, only for Loki to walk away again. Was the brother he had once loved even still there?

The sound of Tony stamping into the room interrupted Thor's ruminations. His face was beet red, and the veins in his forehead looked fit to burst.

"What's the matter?" Thor asked, instinctively reaching for Mjolnir.

"My underpants."

Thor blinked. "Pardon?"

Tony closed his eyes and drew in a shaky breath. "All my underpants have been replaced by leopard-print thongs."

Thor opened his mouth to say something, only for his jaw to just hang there uselessly. "Then... what are you wearing now?"

Somehow, Tony's face turned even redder. He grumbled something under his breath and then slunk away.

"Jarvis!" Thor heard him call out from the hallway. "I need boxers!"

Thor chuckled to himself, knowing that, wherever he was, Loki was probably feeling deeply pleased with himself.

**(Not) the End**

* * *

><p><em>AN_: So a sequel it is by popular demand! Thanks for sticking with me through this, guys. You all have my undying love. I would bake you cookies if I could hand them to you through the screen.

-tries and fails- Awww... T_T

Firstly, though, I'll be needing to take a short break from this so I can step back and figure out where, exactly, the story is going. And by a "short break" I just mean a day or two since I'm currently obsessed with this fandom, haaa.

So yes. Words and stuff.


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